From the past, there has been known a specimen imaging apparatus that magnifies and images the stained blood smears with a microscope and analyzes the obtained images so as to classify and count the blood cells.
In Japanese Patent Publication No. H7-20124, a blood cell analyzing apparatus is disclosed which carries out automatic classification of the blood cells. In the blood cell analyzing apparatus, a blood smear is scanned by a microscope and the blood cells are detected. After the blood cells are detected, the blood cell analyzing apparatus carries out an automatic focusing. Thereafter, the blood cell images are converted into analog signals via a television camera. Various characteristic quantities required for classifying the blood cells are obtained by a characteristic parameter extracting unit on the basis of the digital image signals of the blood cells output from an analog-digital conversion circuit. In addition, an classifying unit classifies the blood cells on the basis of these characteristic quantities.
In addition, when the detected blood cell is unclear or abnormal, the blood cell analyzing apparatus stores the digital image signal in an image memory together with the specimen number or the type of the blood cell for specifying the image signal. When a user tries to carry out the review of the specimen after a plurality of the specimens are tested, the content in the image memory is read by a keyboard input, and a specific blood cell or an abnormal blood cell is displayed on the image display apparatus. Then, the displayed specific abnormal blood cell is reclassified on the basis of human judgment.
As such a specimen imaging apparatus as described above, there is an apparatus which can display a plurality of blood cell images on one screen. In this way, when a plurality of images are aligned and displayed on one screen, the user can carry out the reclassification of the plurality of the blood cells at one time.
However, in the specimen imaging apparatus according to the related art, the blood cell images are aligned in imaging sequence on the screen, but it is not the sequence in which the reclassification can be easily carried out. As a result, the reclassification is difficult to carry out, and there is a problem in that errors occur in the reclassification.